Ultrasonic Transducer Irradiation Test Results

Conference · Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1179371

Daw, Joshua ^[1]; Palmer, Joe ^[1]; Ramuhalli, Pradeep ^[2]; Keller, Paul ^[2]; Montgomery, Robert ^[2]; Chien, Hual-Te ^[3]; Kohse, Gordon ^[4]; Tittmann, Bernhard ^[5]; Reinhardt, Brian ^[5]; Rempe, Joy ^[6]

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1. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
4. MIT (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology), Cambridge, MA (United States)
5. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
6. Rempe and Associates, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

Ultrasonic technologies offer the potential for high-accuracy and -resolution in-pile measurement of a range of parameters, including geometry changes, temperature, crack initiation and growth, gas pressure and composition, and microstructural changes. Many Department of Energy-Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) programs are exploring the use of ultrasonic technologies to provide enhanced sensors for in-pile instrumentation during irradiation testing. For example, the ability of small diameter ultrasonic thermometers (UTs) to provide a temperature profile in candidate metallic and oxide fuel would provide much needed data for validating new fuel performance models. Other ongoing efforts include an ultrasonic technique to detect morphology changes (such as crack initiation and growth) and acoustic techniques to evaluate fission gas composition and pressure. These efforts are limited by the lack of identified ultrasonic transducer materials capable of long term performance under irradiation test conditions. For this reason, the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) was awarded an ATR NSUF project to evaluate the performance of promising magnetostrictive and piezoelectric transducers in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor (MITR) up to a fast fluence of at least 10²¹ n/cm². The goal of this research is to characterize and demonstrate magnetostrictive and piezoelectric transducer operation during irradiation, enabling the development of novel radiation-tolerant ultrasonic sensors for use in Material Testing Reactors (MTRs). As such, this test is an instrumented lead test and real-time transducer performance data is collected along with temperature and neutron and gamma flux data. The current work bridges the gap between proven out-of-pile ultrasonic techniques and in-pile deployment of ultrasonic sensors by acquiring the data necessary to demonstrate the performance of ultrasonic transducers. To date, one piezoelectric transducer and two magnetostrictive transducers have demonstrated reliable operation under irradiation. The irradiation is ongoing.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1179371
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-14-31882; TRN: US1500159
• Resource Relation: Conference: 9. International Conference on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control & Human–Machine Interface Technologies, Charlotte, NC (United States), 21-26 Feb 2016
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
MAGNETOSTRICTION
TRANSDUCERS
IRRADIATION
PIEZOELECTRICITY
FAST NEUTRONS
PERFORMANCE
SENSORS
IN CORE INSTRUMENTS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
ULTRASONIC WAVES
MATERIALS TESTING
In-Core Instrumentation
Ultrasonic Transducer